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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: All-American Fiction, March/April 1938

Wow. Look at the line-up of authors on that cover. Plus there are two more who have stories in this issue who don't even make the cover: Theodore Roscoe and Philip Ketchum. And here's the best part: "All Complete". It's like ARGOSY, only without the damn serials! Why wasn't ALL-AMERICAN FICTION a huge success? I don't know, but it lasted for only eight issues before merging with ARGOSY. The quality of all eight issues appears to be equally high, with many of the same authors appearing in each issue. Definitely a short-run pulp worth collecting, I think.

3 comments:

I've often wondered why this magazine was not a success. As you point out all the issues were full of well known adventure fiction authors.

My theory is that there is a very good reason why such weeklies as ARGOSY, DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY, DETECTIVE STORY, and WESTERN STORY were so successful. The serials kept readers coming back each issue. Many readers said that they preferred complete stories but the big sellers were the magazines that published serials. Despite the complaints I think readers liked the longer novels and were willing to put up with serial installments.

I'll have a comprehensive rundown on this title in the Summer issue of BLOOD 'N' THUNDER. It is indeed an underrated magazine, with several standout stories that deserve recognition. For what it's worth, editor Jack Byrne was as stunned as anybody by ALL AMERICAN's failure to catch on. He denied that its stories were "culls" from ARGOSY's backlog, as was apparently suspected at the time. He also said that everybody at Munsey/Red Star thought highly of the book "except William Dewart's bean-counters."